Coming to Terms with Katz (Score 2)

I am tired of hearing this whining about Katz. If you don't like him - don't read him. Hell, turn him off and never see him again.

I think the accusation that "Katz is a journalist and this isn't journalism" is narrow-minded and old. Katz does not report capital "N" news. He is not writing hard-copy. His work does not appear in the news section of any paper; he does not claim to. You would be bored if he did.

There is no absolute definition of what journalism is and what journalist are allowed to write. Katz is writing on relevant topics of the social implications of information techonolgies. More importantly, he is doing so in a way that is accessible to non-geeks. When chromatic posts a review of "Dummies" books and praises the skill of translating arcane tech-language into information generally accessible, we were not up in arms about his claim; in fact many agreed and cheered the effort on.

If there is to be an bridge between Geek and Nongeek communites; if you really do wish Geek issues to have significance beyond our inclusive, boys-club web sites and IRC rooms, then we need people like Jon Katz. Moreover, if Jon was doing this work and NOT posting to Slashdot, I think it likely many Slashdotters would be unhappy that he wasn't consulting with the community. Why do you think Katz posts here? Other than the obvious reasons, such as his contract with Andover, he gains very important feedback, which I'm sure shapes his opinions and gives him an important context to place his writing in and see how it turns out.

Secondly, I think it hypocritical for slashdotters to repeatedly criticize Katz for a lack of originality. How can you bitch about his lack of journalism, and then jump all over him the moment he actually reports something someone else has written. Even more important, is the almost crippling irony of the Open Source community criticizing anyone for using someone else's work

Katz isn't a tech-geek. Nor is he a hard-news journalist. He is a freelance writer who is one of the very few willing to explore these issues of critical importance to our society, and do so in a way which both anchors his writing in Geek Culture and maintain a very useful level of accessibility for those outside of that culture.

Am I Katz booster?

No.

In fact, I think he is off the mark on this article, and in others I have read.

However, I am just as unwilling to dogmatically flame every article he writes as to automatically assume he speaks the word of God in a beautiful and mellifluous voice. Jon Katz's writing is doing important work for our community. If you don't like what he's saying, turn him off. Or at the very least, please criticize something new.

There are many public figures interested in nay-saying and FUD-ing the Internet and the technologies behind it, following the ancient school of Change-Is-Bad. Why is it that when we encounter, what seems to me to be, the closest thing to an ally we have, who is _not_ one of us, he is constantly attacked.

The next time you want to flame Katz, trying coding it first and then posting it. Maybe, then at least, you'd have a chance of applying some logic to your comments.